


all along i was your home

by elegantwings



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Domestic, Fireworks, Fourth of July, Gardening, Gift Giving, M/M, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-16
Updated: 2013-04-16
Packaged: 2017-12-08 15:51:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/763184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elegantwings/pseuds/elegantwings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles doesn't bring Derek flowers for any other reason than he just does, has no idea it would lead to notes taped on his window and spring gardening, or that it would bring some kind beauty to a forsaken place in the middle of summer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all along i was your home

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kedreeva](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kedreeva/gifts).



> Written for the Sterek Charity Auction. Way later than I intended :( Due to an unfortunate email snafu, the prompt changed from a Valentine's Day fic to one about the Fourth of July, including fireworks, but I decided to incorporate both ideas. Title from "Transatlantique" by Beruit.

Stiles has been thinking a lot lately about how Derek’s loft could use a little life. Some color, a homey smell. That’s not nearly a good enough excuse for him to be in the supermarket, staring down half-off flower arrangements the day after Valentine’s Day. He doesn’t remember telling his legs that it was okay to come over here, they just sort of did it on their own. Instead of getting too worked up about it he rescues a couple of bouquets and gets out before he does something crazy like pick out air fresheners or something.  
  
It’s kind of a whim, and it’s kind of premeditated, and he tries not to care which one it’s gonna look like when Derek answers the door to find him clutching flowers, the plastic around them crinkling in his shaky hands. And Derek just looks at him, sweating a little on the flimsy “Welcome” mat (the one with the pawprints that someone, probably Boyd, left there a couple of weeks ago).  
  
Stiles thrusts the flowers into Derek’s chest. “Your place could use a little color,” he says.  
  
“You mean one color,” Derek deadpans, looking over the multiple shades of pink. He takes them inside, though, into the kitchen where he’s probably trying to figure out what to put them in. Stiles hovers in the doorway before following him in. Realizes he should have gotten something to use as a vase, and decides Beacon Hills High water bottles will do just as well.  
  
They arrange the flowers without a word about how strange this is. Stiles allows himself to accept the fact that this kind of means that they’re friends now, unable to avoid how they’re sitting on the same couch, smelling the same flowery smell , watching a Friends rerun like they do this all the time.  
  
“My mom and Laura used to gather wildflowers and fill the house with them, I mean really fill the house.” Derek very carefully doesn’t look away from the screen. “I thought it was stupid at the time, but I guess I didn’t realize how much it kind of means home.” Stiles inches closer to him, covers his hand and leaves it there, because he knows better than most that words don’t mean much sometimes.  
  
They stay like that until Isaac and Boyd and Scott come in and claim the TV for video game night, acknowledging the hand-holding with eye-rolls and “about time” and tell them to either grab a controller or watch, but no back-seat gaming.  
  
Derek sort of shrugs apologetically about it, because technically it is Isaac’s apartment, too, but that doesn’t stop Stiles from making it his personal mission to reign virtual destruction on his so-called friends.  
  
A couple of days later Stiles comes home from lacrosse to find a note stuck to the outside of his window. “Left something in your mailbox. –D “, and then underneath it, written hastily, the letters almost blurring together, “the dead bird on the lawn has nothing to do with me” and it surprises a laugh out of Stiles, because Derek is funny and he’s still not used to it.  
  
There’s coffee in the mailbox, an expensive looking dark roast that smells a little like chocolate. It gives Stiles something to look forward to in the morning, something that makes him feel a little less alone when his dad’s already left for work.  
  
So Stiles finds himself in the store again, this time buying packets of seeds, gardening tools. On a Sunday, he drags Derek out to the preserve, refusing to tell him why until they get there. They work through the afternoon, planting wildflowers around the house, and Stiles goes inside to plant them in between cracks in the floorboards. He pours at least four packets of seeds into burial space Peter climbed out of. He feels something, he’ll later think of it as a tentative connection with the earth, as his fingers turn over dirt. As he wills the ground to produce something good.  
  
After that, after their first kisses that taste like early spring and the dirt streaked across their cheeks, after that it’s pretty obvious that they’re in some kind of relationship, even though they don’t really announce it to the pack or actually call their dates what they are. That’s okay, because their friends do it enough for them, and they’re happy for them in a genuine way that Stiles would have never seen coming.  
  
***  
  
On the fourth of July, Stiles and Isaac want to see fireworks so Derek agrees to take them to what he swears is the best place to watch, where his family used to go when he was a kid. They collect Boyd and Scott, Lydia and Allison, and somehow Danny ends up tagging along.  
  
They trek through the Preserve, unconsciously coming to a stop in front of Derek’s house. The explosion of color, the yellows and oranges, the purples and blues, takes almost everyone by surprise. It makes the blackened wood seem less desolate, like it should be on the front of a postcard instead of the center of so much misery.  
  
Derek smiles, face tilted towards Stiles so that only he can see. Their hands find each other, connected to affirm their little secret.  
  
There’s a natural clearing about five minutes away, with enough space for everyone to sprawl out, spread blankets and settle in. The view is good, great actually, in the sky and around them. Maybe Stiles doesn’t have night vision like almost everyone else, but he can hear the talking, the teasing, the sounds of kissing (the sound of Derek, kissing him), and it’s amazing, blissfully normal.  
  
When the fireworks end, and everyone’s hanging out in the lantern light, Stiles lets them think he’s dragging Derek away for “privacy.” He even lets Derek think it, doesn’t say anything when Derek looks a little surprised but goes along with it. He takes him out to the road, surely abandoned at this hour and definitely on this night, pulls Derek close and leans in, whispers, “You think I’d bring my backpack to makeout in the woods, really?” and pulls a pair of his dad’s shooting range earmuffs over Derek’s head. He grabs each side, shaking Derek’s head gently, playfully, kissing the confused purse of his lips. “Trust me,” he says.  
  
Stiles produces a small collection of (mostly) safe fireworks, and for the next couple of hours they just barely manage not to set themselves on fire, shrieking and laughing loud enough to rival the sound of the explosions. It will take a few days but Derek will realize that he trusted Stiles, had for a long time, and this is where it’s gotten him, in a car full of wildflowers on their way to decorate his apartment.


End file.
